The present invention relates to a method for successively feeding flat products.
In particular, the present invention relates to a method for successively feeding flat products into groups consisting of a number of said products arranged on edge.
The present invention may be used to advantage in the food industry for forming groups of sweets, biscuits or similar products upstream from a packing machine. U.S. application Ser. No. 07/357,359, filed by the present applicants on May 26, 1979 and the content of which is fully incorporated herein, relates to a method and device for successively feeding slab-shaped products, such as sweets or biscuits, into groups consisting of a number of said products arranged on edge. According to said method and device, the products, laid flat, are fed successively on a conveyor to the input of a curved channel extending downwards over an arc of substantially 90.degree. and down which the products drop in contact with one another. At the output of said curved channel, the products, arranged on edge, are maintained in this position and fed successively and separately to a user machine inside respective compartments of a conveyor defined by two tangent counter-rotating screws.
Though they provide for effectively feeding a succession of flat products to a user machine, the above known method and device present a number of functional drawbacks, foremost of which is that they fail to provide for feeding the products smoothly down the curved channel. As a result, the products are subjected to continual impact, possibly resulting in the formation of scraps, which may clog, the channel or drop down the same together with the products and block the screw conveyor.
The reason for this is that, to feed the products on edge into respective compartments on the screw conveyor, the output end portion of the curved channel necessarily extends perpendicular to the conveyor, so that the leading product being inserted into the compartment bears the full weight of the products inside the channel until it is withdrawn. As the helical projections on the screws also defined the compartments laterally, it is not possible, especially when dealing with substantially round-section products, to employ screws with much larger outside diameters than the products. Consequently, the leading product, once inserted inside the compartment, projects upwards and outwards of the compartment by an amount practically equal to its radius, thus resulting in downward jolting and possible damage to the products inside the channel when it is withdrawn.